


Haven't Found A Drop

by superfluouskeys



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/F, Minor Female Lavellan/Cassandra Pentaghast, Redemption, Slow Burn, kind of implied/one-sided Varric/Hawke, meredith at skyhold
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-30 15:29:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12111732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superfluouskeys/pseuds/superfluouskeys
Summary: The rumours of the Knight-Commander's untimely demise may have been slightly exaggerated.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like I have a lot to say about this story already, because I have so many ideas for it and this first chapter was the hardest to set up in a way that kind of made sense hahaha but anyway, it promises to be a fairly long one--I hope you'll enjoy my nonsense!

Upon first glance, the woman who approached Skyhold Fortress alone, just as the sun disappeared behind the mountains, seemed but another refugee.  Her armour was light and well-worn, and she carried only a small satchel and what appeared to be a strange longsword. 

She gave the name Marian, and asked the guards at the main gate where she might find a dwarf called Varric Tethras.  When they indicated the Herald's Rest, the woman did not quite smile, but there was a faint crinkling about her bright blue eyes, and one of the guards swore she muttered, "Needn't have asked," before she headed in that direction.

The esteemed dwarf in question sat alone in the corner of Skyhold's makeshift tavern, deep in the usual contemplation of all his life's greatest mistakes.  He remembered a time not so long ago when there'd always been a small crowd around him, always a friend to greet him or a dodgy acquaintance looking for a favour. 

Now, here, in this strange new place with its towering mountains and wide open skies, he often wished for more company, but found he didn't know how to handle it even when it came.  People tried to talk to him, to reach out, ask questions, shoot the breeze--but every topic felt too stiff or too heavy, and Varric never felt like he was saying the right thing anymore, or even anything worth saying.

When the tavern's door swung open, he only looked up as a course of habit.  Of all the faces he might have expected, how could he ever have anticipated hers?

He nearly spilled his ale.

Hawke's eyes found him almost immediately, and the smile that graced her features was like something out of his most ridiculous novels.  Varric stood, disbelieving, as Hawke hurried across the bar, threw her arms about him, and promptly removed his feet from the floor.

He was so happy to see her, he didn't even have the wherewithal to complain.  He let out an involuntary noise of surprise, wrapped his arms about her shoulders, and buried his face in her neck.

"Maker, how I missed you," she whispered.

There were few times in his life when Varric could say he'd been at a loss for words.  This was among them.

When at last his toes made contact with solid ground once more, Varric pulled away enough to take in the sight of her.  She'd slicked her hair away from her face, and it changed the way she looked, drew attention to the gauntness of her cheeks and that inexplicably otherworldly quality of her eyes.  She was still smiling--positively beaming, actually, and he was sure his own expression matched--but beyond that, he could see the way the years had worn on her, dark circles under her eyes and new scars along the sharp line of her jaw.

But she was here, and she was still alive, and she was smiling at him, and she'd come because he had asked her to.

"Shit, Hawke," Varric managed at last, shaking his head, and hovering somewhere between laughing and crying.  "I don't even know what to say."

They spent half the night in a similar fashion, both of them practically giddy, maybe just from exhaustion.  Neither of them had any interest in bringing up the real reason for Hawke's presence here, nor even in acknowledging the direness of their circumstances.  It was all stupid old memories and stories they'd told a thousand times and snuggling up together under Varric's blanket complaining about how cold it was here, and how had Hawke ever survived Fereldan at all?

They fell asleep sometime before dawn, and by the time Varric had fully awoken, Hawke had already disentangled herself from his blankets and left his room.  His first thought was that it was a damn good thing dwarves didn't dream; otherwise, he was sure he'd think he'd made the whole thing up.

He found Hawke a little higher up, pacing the battlements with the kind of barely-muted nervous energy he'd only ever witnessed in her when things were turning particularly shitty.

"You're not nervous, are you?" he greeted her.

"No, you know me, I _love_ looking out over a sea of templars," said Hawke lightly as she continued to pace.

Varric narrowly managed to swallow a highly unnecessary retort.  "They're not templars anymore, remember?"

"Right, right," Hawke drawled, and just barely came to a stop.  " _Whatever we were before, we're the Inquisition now_.  If there's one thing I love more than templars, it's religious fanatics."

Varric felt the vague unease with which he'd awoken slowly rising to the forefront of his consciousness, and struggled to ignore it.  "Trust me, they won't give you any trouble.  Seeker Pentaghast is actually a big fan."

"Seeker Pentaghast being the Right Hand of the late Divine, who kidnapped you," said Hawke drily.  She leaned heavily upon the battlements' walls, surveying the courtyard below like the hunting bird who was her namesake.

"Yeah," Varric suppressed a sigh.  "That's the one."

"Can't wait to meet her."

"She's not--" Varric frowned, tried to think of what he wanted to say about the Seeker that would soothe Hawke's concerns (or, possibly, ill-focused ire) without being untruthful, but in the end, he didn't get the chance.

"What the fuck is going on down there?" Hawke wondered sharply.

Varric joined her at her perch, and followed her line of vision to the main gate, where a full procession of heavily-armoured soldiers were coming into view.  At their center was a figure  bound in heavy chains, head bowed and gait unsteady.  Varric felt his stomach drop, and blinked several times, sure he was hallucinating after all.

"It can't be..." Hawke breathed, and to Varric's great chagrin, Hawke sounded equal parts horrified...and hopeful.

She didn't glitter like the sun any longer.

Even utterly unarmed, she dwarfed most of the men who escorted her into Skyhold.  He'd never seen her flaxen hair uncovered, and now it was dirty and ragged and greying at the temples.  The dull murmur of voices from the courtyard fell gradually stone-silent as she passed.  Even if the people of Skyhold didn't know who she was on sight the way Hawke and Varric had, it seemed she still engendered the same instinctive trepidation wherever she tread, whether a commander or a prisoner.

But Meredith Stannard no longer glittered like the sun.  Instead, she shone like a dulled blade, tarnished by time and neglect, nearly beyond recognition.  She was as a vessel so atrophied and ill-tended that one might almost forget: an old sword was still a deadly weapon.

The Seeker appeared to greet the procession, and Varric felt his throat tighten and his jaw clench.  Of course it was her doing.  Of course, just when Varric had thought maybe the Inquisition wasn't a death trap, maybe it was worth bringing Hawke here, Cassandra would go and pull a stunt like this.

The swarm of guards parted and Meredith raised her head to meet the Seeker's eyes.  It was definitely her, icy blue eyes gone cloudy and distant, face scarred and twisted from the red lyrium that had seemed to burn her up from the inside.

Varric let out the heavy sigh he'd been holding in at long last.  He'd known Cassandra would be pissed at him when she found out he'd lied about knowing where Hawke was, and he was about as prepared for that storm as anyone could be.  He hadn't counted on this.

* * *

"So, I've just learned that Skyhold has an Elven name."

"Yes," said Solas evenly.  " _Tarasyl'an Te'las_.  There are a few plausible translations.  Most today say 'the place where the sky is kept,' but it might interest you to know that the ancient elves would have said 'the place where the sky was held back.'"

The recruits of the organization that called itself Inquisition often seemed an endless font of secrecy.  High on its newly-appointed leader's list at the moment was Solas, an elven mage who was neither Dalish nor of any alienage, and who had seemed up until recently nothing but a reclusive scholar with a bizarrely specific field of research.

Now, all of a sudden, he had elected to offer more pressing insight, and had skillfully evaded directly answering any question regarding the source of his information.  The Fade might seem to most a convenient catch-all explanation, circumstances as dire as they were, but Elonaya of Clan Lavellan had long since learned to reserve the utmost skepticism for people who just happened to have exactly what you needed, exactly when you needed it.

Skyhold Fortress was a breathtaking sight, no doubt about that, and the obscurity of its location could not be more ideal.  What troubled Elonaya was how little anyone seemed to know about its origins, its original purpose, and how such a magnificent place had ever fallen into ruin to begin with.

She did not get the chance to press further, however, before her attention was rather abruptly drawn to a veritable horde of soldiers marching a madwoman through the courtyard.

"It seems you have other matters that require your attention," said Solas.  "We'll talk of this another time."

Though she had never been near Kirkwall, her clan had traveled near enough to hear talk of its Knight-Commander, and the iron fist with which she had ruled.  Though she had yet to admit it, Elonaya had practically devoured Varric's copy of the Tale of the Champion during those early days camped out in the Hinterlands.  A part of her felt, perhaps irrationally, that even without one experience or the other, she would still recognize Knight-Commander Meredith anywhere.

Tensions had run much higher then, particularly between Cassandra and...everyone else, and Elonaya hadn't wanted to cause more trouble by asking too many questions.  Even so, the people he described--Hawke and all her strange companions, and even Varric, who was so distant and reserved when compared to his in-story counterpart--had felt suddenly very dear to Elonaya, like she knew them, herself.

Just as Elonaya had come to love the character of Hawke and her friends, so had she come to loathe their enemies.  The tyranny and coldheartedness of the templar Knight-Commander engendered visceral hatred and chilling fear in her, as though the events had directly affected her.  To see the monster in question, alive, being escorted into the very courtyard where the title of Inquisitor had just been forced upon her, seemed nothing short of a violation.

To see Cassandra appearing to greet the procession, as though it were expected, felt like a blow to the stomach.

"...not expected your presence so soon," she was saying as Elonaya approached.  "I will alert the--" she turned, and her dark eyes found Elonaya standing, waiting, trembling.  "Inquisitor," she finished, quietly.

 _Would a warning have been too much to ask for?_ Elonaya thought to snap, or perhaps, _are the other masses of templars not quite enough for you?_ But such a show of temper would do far more harm than good in the end, and so Elonaya somehow managed to swallow the hundred things she wanted to say.  She held Cassandra's gaze silently, hands clenched into fists at her sides, awaiting an explanation.

"I...hope you will forgive my lack of forewarning, Inquisitor," said Cassandra, who, to her credit, also seemed to be measuring her words carefully.  "I thought to send word to Kirkwall after learning the nature of the Red Templars at Haven.  The response was...much faster than I anticipated."

Elonaya spoke at last, through gritted teeth.  "You intend to keep her prisoner here?"

"Yes," Cassandra nodded curtly.  "We are more than capable of containing her here."  She paused, almost hesitated a moment, before she added, "Information on the effects of red lyrium is...not easy to come by, Inquisitor."

"I see," Elonaya managed, but she absolutely did not see.  Why not drag a Red Templar corpse back from a battlefield if you needed information?  Why not take one alive?

The former Knight-Commander had barely moved since the procession stopped.  She kept her head bowed and her eyes closed.  Perhaps Varric's artistic rendering of her as having died in her battle with the Champion was not so far removed from the reality as one would assume.

"Your instructions, Inquisitor?" the head of the procession prompted after a moment's silence.  With sudden and somewhat dizzying clarity, Elonaya realized that Cassandra, too, even in her affected certainty, was waiting for her word.

"Right," she breathed, frowning to herself.  "Take her to the dungeon, then.  We'll..." she returned her attention to Cassandra, and now she could clearly see all the doubt and hesitation shining through her usual hard expression "...discuss the specifics later.  I...need a moment to..."

"Inquisitor," Varric called out, descending from the battlements as the soldiers marched the former Knight-Commander away.  "Seeker," he added, somewhat less enthusiastically.  "I was, uh...hoping to find you.  Everyone being all inspirational earlier jogged my memory, so I sent a letter to...an old friend.  I thought she might be able to offer some helpful insight on our newest enemy."

"The Champion of Kirkwall," Cassandra breathed, before Varric could say any more.

Upon first glance, the woman who followed Varric down the stairs was not quite so instantly recognizable as the woman in chains, but now that Elonaya focused her attention, she was overcome by a similar rush of awe.

Marian Hawke, with inky black hair pushed away from her sharp face and blue eyes so bright they seemed to pierce, ducked her head, and shifted somewhat awkwardly under the eyes that now studied her.  "I don't use that title much anymore," she said quietly.

"Varric," said Cassandra, in an entirely different tone, this one less starstruck and more barely-contained rage.  "A word."

* * *

Hawke found Cassandra some time later, long after her blinding fury had cooled into mild irritation, coupled with a pang of guilt for how she had lashed out.

"Seeker Pentaghast?"

Cassandra straightened her posture and turned to face the woman she'd spent nearly a year trying to hunt down, a woman she almost felt she knew, and yet a woman she hardly recognized when compared with the stories that had been spun about her.  "Yes, Champion?"

"Please," her hand found the back of her neck, almost awkwardly.  "Hawke will do fine."

Cassandra nodded, and steadfastly ignored the surge of something remarkably akin to delight that bubbled up somewhere within her chest.  "Hawke, then."

"I...couldn't help but notice...the arrival of your newest prisoner," she said, with a curious tilt of her head and a slight quirk of her lips, as though it were a joke.

Cassandra felt herself frowning.  "What's done is done," she said firmly.  "Whether the former Knight-Commander may offer us anything useful remains to be seen.  She is here now, nevertheless."

Hawke held up her hands.  "Don't misunderstand me--I'm not here to complain."

Cassandra's frown deepened.  "That makes one of you."

The slight quirk of the lips returned.  "I...actually wondered if you might permit me to speak with her."

"Speak with her?" Cassandra echoed, dumbfounded.  According both to what Cassandra had read and what she had been told, Knight-Commander Meredith and Hawke had deeply disliked one another on principle, and all of their interactions had ended disastrously.  That Hawke should ask to speak with her, particularly so soon after her arrival, seemed to Cassandra a highly unusual response to such a circumstance.

Hawke's hand returned to the back of her neck.  "Word on the battlements is that she's barely spoken a word since the battle in Kirkwall.  I...can't promise I could help, but we were almost friends, once upon a time."

Cassandra felt her frown return.  "That...was not my understanding."

Hawke's smile turned equal parts fond and weary.  "Well, that's why you never listen to Varric.  Anyway, I was definitely more successful at talking to Meredith than at killing Corypheus."

Cassandra barely suppressed a heavy sigh, too exhausted to feel any fresh anger for all the lies she had swallowed.  Of course she would deny the Champion little, if she could help it, but she had hardly expected this to be the first request she was posed.  Cassandra made the decision to move gradually, tried to ignore the deep ache settling into her muscles, and gestured that Hawke should follow her.

"So, Seeker, if I may?"

"Cassandra, if you wish," Cassandra replied, with a small rush of something like adrenaline.

Hawke hesitated a moment, but Cassandra heard the smile in her voice when she continued.  "Cassandra, then.  Not to belabour a point, but I was sort of under the impression that the Knight-Commander had died.  It's a bit unsettling that so many people I've personally fought have turned up walking around without a scratch on them."

"You were not alone in thinking so," said Cassandra grimly.  "Though I suspect your friend knew the truth of her survival."

"Yes," Hawke sighed, "I generally assume Varric always knows at least a little more than he lets on."

"Hm," Cassandra uttered, by way of response.  Then, hesitantly, amended, "But she did not escape unscathed.  Guard-Captain Vallen wrote that she had considerable trouble finding people willing even to go near Meredith.  She was uncertain whether they were afraid of the red lyrium that poisoned her, or simply of the woman, herself."

Hawke let out a small, tired chuckle.  "A little of both, I suspect."

"And yet you are not concerned," Cassandra pressed.

Hawke was silent for a moment as they descended the stairs into what served as Skyhold's dungeon.  It was sorely in need of repairs--the grey light of morning streamed in through a large hole in the stone wall that led out to the steep mountainside where the fortress was situated--but Inquisitor Lavellan felt the dungeon to be a low priority.  She kept few prisoners.

"Meredith holds no power over me," she said at last, quietly.  "Not anymore."

* * *

Morning.  Grey light of an overcast day filtered through jagged stone.  A crisp chill in the air, the scent of a gathering storm--fresh; not like in Kirkwall, where everything smelled of ash and decay.

" _Though stung with a hundred arrows_ ," she whispered, the words little more than shapes upon her lips, " _though suffering from ailments both great and small, His Heart was strong, and he moved on_."

Someone was coming.  Footsteps, approaching voices.  Real, not imagined.  Fresh and solid, not red and wrong.  Familiar.  The Seeker of Truth who had brought her here, who asked her for an account of events she hardly remembered, and...

" _The deep dark before dawn's first light seems eternal, but know that the sun always rises_."

The heavy creaking of a dungeon door.  Strange, that she should come to think the sound of such a thing familiar.  This, of all the horrors her mind had offered up to her, seemed like it should be among the falsehoods.

"Meredith?"

A terrible apparition.  The worst of the false voices.  The one who tried to...but no.  Meredith opened her eyes and the vision was still there, still solid and real, and _different_.  Her hair was pushed out of her face, her cheeks were gaunt, and there were new lines about her unmistakable eyes.

"Serah Hawke."  It had been so long since she had bothered to put voice to her words.  Her throat was dry, but the sound still rang, still vibrated in her chest, and somehow she, herself, felt more real for having spoken.

Hawke knelt before her cell.  "Are you...feeling better?" she asked.  Then, suddenly, inclined her head, and amended in that airy way she had, "In the head, I mean.  You...went a little crazy on us, there at the end."

 _Crazy, mad, the Knight-Commander's gone--_ but Hawke had said...

" _Blessed are those who stand before the corrupt and the wicked and do not falter_..." she bowed her head once more.  "It seems you were truly Kirkwall's Champion after all."

Hawke let out a breath of strained laughter.  "I don't know about that," she said.  "I was mostly just trying not to die."

_Trying not to die, please don't kill me, what am I to you, have you forgotten--_

Meredith inhaled sharply.  Another image, bright red and hazy around the edges.  "Your sister," she breathed.

"She's fine," she heard Hawke say, but the image would not fade, and it played on in her mind's eye, irreverent to the constraints of the reality, two hands and a sword she recognized putting an end to one of the Champion's infamous circle of apostates _at long last_.

Meredith shook her head against it, clenched and unclenched her hands, flexed her fingers against her restraints.  "I remember...I..."

"Oh, you definitely threatened to," said Hawke, somewhere beyond what Meredith could see.  "But rest assured if you'd laid a finger on Beth, we wouldn't be having this little chat."

Circle robes, wide eyes, falling to their knees and begging for mercy, the Champion with her _abomination_ for a companion, her allegedly reformed _apostate_ for a sister, her own apostasy a thinly-veiled threat, a constant reminder that she was too powerful, too well-loved, and Maker protect the city, the Free Marches, all of Thedas when at last Marian Hawke fell to the whisperings of a demon.

Meredith took in a slow, shuddering breath.  She could not raise her head.  She could not see the grey light of morning any longer.  All she saw, all there ever had been for her, was endless night.  "Will anyone ever manage to keep you in check, Serah Hawke?"

Silence, buried beneath the noise of false voices and red memories.  Hawke did not respond, and yet she did.  She brandished her staff with the malcontents, flaunted the markings of dark rituals upon the skin of her arms, red, red, _red_ reflected in her eyes, red all-encompassing, swallowing the world and all it contained.

"Perhaps the sky has torn open and chaos rains down upon the world," Meredith heard herself continue, somewhere dark and distant and cold, "but for my part, I rue the day you and your merry band of _apostates_ falls victim to a demon's whisperings at long last."

She heard the shuffling of a person standing, scrambling to her feet.  "Then what?" a voice from the Void challenged her.  "Then you'll finally be right?"

 _Right, right, rite of annulment, cannot be saved, the rite is in your hands and the mages are beyond your help, beyond your control, beyond your understanding, kill them all, kill every last one and start anew, kill the Champion and end her reign of terror, end her shameless display of power, end her, end her, end her_.

Hard to breathe now, like something growing in her lungs, and the darkness around her burned crimson at the edges.  Someone had said something, the Champion, who did not call her mad, who did not dismiss her when she spoke, who believed her, who tried to, who tried to...

"If I am wrong about you, _Champion_ ," she managed, barely more than a whisper, barely more than shapes upon her lips, "then I am wrong.  If I am right--" harder and harder to breathe, something growing in her lungs, another laboured breath "--then the Maker only knows how much havoc you might wreak before you are _struck down_ at last."

Darkness.  Footsteps departing, and the distant creak of the dungeon door.  Muted voices, both more and less real than the ones that felt nearest.

_Maker, though the darkness comes upon me, I shall...I shall..._

_What shall I do?_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm objectively horrible at DA2 and Corypheus immediately knocked out like half my team, so let the record show that Aveline defeated him by her damn self.

Hawke awoke gasping for air, choking on a scream that had died somewhere in her throat.  She felt the familiarity of panic as she struggled to place her surroundings ( _the door should be there, and the pillow should be—)_ , followed by the uneasy calm of remembrance.

She'd traveled east, to Skyhold Fortress.  She'd come here because Varric had...she'd come here because Corypheus had...she'd come here because...

But now she was here, and nothing felt like it should.  She supposed a foolish part of her had hoped that coming here would bring back the Kirkwall days—the best of them—when they'd skulked around all day running stupid errands for anyone who'd pay and sat around all night yelling over one another, fragments of the stories they'd built from their misadventures.

But Varric was different here, and so was Hawke, she knew, and everyone else was gone, except for...

And Meredith was here, and that changed everything, because Meredith always changed everything, because that was just the sort of person Meredith was.

The little elf they were calling Inquisitor was a funny sort.  Hawke liked her very much already, though she doubted the feeling was mutual.  The Lady Lavellan was small and angry and regarded the people who held her up as their Herald of Andraste with barely-concealed revilement.  Hawke hadn't fought as part of a team since that horrible debacle back in Kirkwall, but she felt she'd gladly join this one, for whatever time they needed her.  For whatever time she had to give.

Hawke liked Cassandra, too, or rather, she imagined she would, if Cassandra were acting herself and not faintly starstruck by Hawke, of all people.  Or rather, Varric's version of Hawke, or rather, Varric's version of a version of Hawke, or maybe it was thrice over now, with the whole kidnapping incident, and Hawke loved Varric dearly, but she admired anyone who could bring him to task on one of his innumerable webs of white lies.

(And Varric didn't _like_ Meredith, because no one liked Meredith, except that Hawke sort of liked Meredith, sometimes, when she wasn't being all crazy about mages, but wasn't everyone always being all crazy about mages these days?)

Hawke stood and grappled in the darkness for her coat and shoes.  She'd been set up with a lovely little room of her own, nicer by far than anywhere she'd slept since she'd fled Kirkwall, but that did not change the fact that it was damn fucking cold in the mountains, and she was certain it had rained an entire year's worth in the two or so days she'd been here.  She felt the chill down to her bones, had awoken shivering and aching without the warmth of a friend against her side, but the sensation was oddly refreshing—she'd never been anywhere like this, not for long. 

She wondered idly whether Father had ever been to a place like this, when he was on the run from the law.  She wondered, downright whimsically, if she liked it enough to settle down somewhere similar for awhile.  For as long as any Hawke settled anywhere.

Amells liked to settle places.  Mother liked to settle, and so would Bethany, if given the option.  Even Carver, who had never on the surface seemed to like much of anything, had done much better on the farm than on the run.

But not Malcolm, and not Marian.  Even when they stayed, they never quite settled.  Always that restless energy about them, that impulse to flee, or find, or discover.  Mother and Father had fought about it often.  Marian had privately wondered whether she might ever find some small happiness, when she knew all too well how the same blood coursed through her veins.

Hawke took to the battlements to pace more freely, relished the strange sensation of gentle rain against her skin.  She hadn't a clear idea of the hour—sometime in the morning, she imagined, by the light, but the sun wouldn't reveal itself on such a morning, and so she was left to guess.  Plans were being made for a trip to Crestwood, whatever that meant—Hawke wasn't accustomed to being involved in such big, fancy organizations, where Plans Were Made, and people didn't just sort of armour up and charge into the abyss headfirst.  Until then, she gathered she was free to go about her days as she pleased, and she wasn't certain she knew what to do with herself after a couple of years on the run for her life.

The Inquisition was truly massive in scope, from Hawke's perspective, and evidently growing every day.  They were tasked with amassing armies and agents and fortresses across Thedas, with the lofty and decidedly obscure goal of discovering The Truth behind the explosion at the Conclave.

What they knew so far was that Corypheus, this crazy darkspawn fellow who insisted he was a magister—like, one of the original ones—had somehow been behind the explosion.  Since Hawke had killed him (or, more precisely, Aveline had saved her ass while she attempted to kill him), his culpability in this matter seemed highly suspect; however, even though Hawke knew Varric Tethras to be a filthy liar, she generally trusted him not to lie to her.  At least, not about the important things, such as darkspawn who didn't know how to stay dead.

So, since the Inquisition was the sort of big, fancy organization that crawled into every corner of the globe until it could suss out every last drop of information there was to be had, Varric had seen fit to call upon Hawke, who was an expert in nothing if not in landing herself squarely in the middle of trouble.  And Hawke had come here because Varric had asked her to, and also because her life was one steaming pile of unfinished business, and she wished, just this once, she might somehow be able to help set something well and truly right.

Hawke leaned heavily upon Varric's door before she knocked, waited a long while before she knocked louder.

"Hmm.  Yeah.  Hang on," came a muffled voice from inside, then some shuffling, then Varric appeared, looking about as tired as he ever did.  "Hawke?"

"Sorry to wake you," said Hawke with a halfhearted smile.

A small flicker of the old warmth flashed across his eyes.  "No you're not," he countered sleepily.  He opened the door to let her in and fumbled about in the darkness until he found a sconce, and the room was slowly brought to light.

Hawke edged into the room, feeling strangely out of sorts.  There had been a time not so long ago when she'd have flung open his door at any time of day or night and thrown herself into one of his chairs or even onto his bed without a second thought.  But Varric was different here, different now, and Hawke wasn't sure how to ask what had changed, and she'd seen the book but she hadn't read it, and now that the giddiness of a reunion and the wellspring of happier memories had run dry, it seemed neither of them knew what to say to one another.

Varric sank back onto his bed, rubbed at his eyes.  Hawke took his desk chair and curled her knees up against her chest.

"So."  Varric inhaled deeply, hesitated.

"It's quite bizarre, I'll have you know," Hawke offered, with somewhat affected lightness, "seeing yourself on the cover of a bestseller."

Varric covered his face, equal parts embarrassment and relief.  "Oh, _Maker."_

Hawke felt the tiniest fragment of something tense and uneasy coming undone.  "And here I'd gotten so used to the way I looked on 'most wanted' posters!" she extended a leg to prod his knee with her toe.

"I was hoping to write you before the book went out," said Varric, "but I hadn't gotten word in a few months, and my publicist was obsessed with it, kept pushing it forward, and...well."  He looked up, met her eyes without pretense for the first time since she'd seen him again.  "One minute you're just jotting down some tavern stories; the next, there's a sodding Seeker of Truth down your throat."  He chuckled mirthlessly, shook his head.  "Suffice it to say, it all happened very fast."

"Well, you seem to have won her over in the end," said Hawke, with the faintest beginnins of a smirk.  "Seeker Pentaghast is positively enamoured of it.  Rather fortunate for me, I might add.  I get the sense she wouldn't have been nearly so accommodating if she weren't such a fan of my fictionalized exploits."

Varric scoffed.  "Glad she's being nice to you, at least!"

"Exceedingly so," Hawke leaned in dramatically.  "Who'd have thought I'd live to see the day a Super-Templar or whatever would be bending over backwards to accommodate me?"

But the paltry flicker of life abruptly fled Varric's features, and that tired, haunted look returned to his eyes as he refocused them on some imagined shadow upon the far wall.  "You've always had a way of circumventing the will of the sun-shield."

Hawke felt the familiarity of dread settling somewhere in the pit of her stomach.  "I'm glad she's alive, Varric," she said, more severely than she'd intended.  Not that it mattered.  Not that it changed anything.  But if Hawke had learned one thing from losing her entire family one by one, it was that 'alive and fucking hates me' was infinitely preferable to 'dead and no longer has an opinion.'

"Her," Varric nearly growled.  "Of all the people we lost.  _She_ had to survive."

"Suppose I said that about Bartrand," Hawke retorted coolly.

Varric's eyes flashed.  "I'm sure you would have, if he were alive, and he'd deserve it, too."

Hawke sighed heavily.  "Fine, so she deserves some harsh words.  Why do you always have to speak them to me, like I don't know?"

"Because sometimes I worry that you don't," Varric did not quite snap, and he was frowning at the floor now.  When he spoke again his voice was even softer, and there was this new, tremulous quality she'd never witnessed in it before. 

"You draw in all these crazy people, and of course they love you, and you love them, but you don't keep your distance."  He shook his head.  "You don't see their madness and think, 'wow, that's disturbing, I should back off'—you dig deeper and you try to help and you get yourself mixed up in their problems."  He looked up at her, somehow pleading for something she didn't know how to give him, and suddenly Hawke thought she might understand Varric much better than she ever had in the decade she'd known him.

At the same time, the accusation stung, and Varric was the first familiar face Hawke had seen in years, and couldn't he just put his hatred aside—a hatred that was no longer useful, a hatred that was for another time, long past them—and be her friend?  Hawke stood abruptly, wrapped her coat tightly about herself, and tried very hard to ignore the twinge of guilt she felt when Varric almost flinched in response.

"I didn't come here for an indictment of my character, Varric," she said coolly.  "If I wanted that I'm sure I could just read your stupid book."

She slammed his door behind her and tore down the stairs into the courtyard unseeing.  She wasn't sure where she was going, exactly.  Anywhere else.  Anywhere where she wouldn't have to look at Varric and his kicked puppy expression, and anywhere she wouldn't have to be alone with her senseless thoughts.

* * *

Once more the distant notion of approaching sound woke her.  Footsteps above her, perhaps, or horses below.  The light from the open wall told her little.  Always a gathering storm in this place.  Today was better; clearer, more solid, and the mere act of breathing did not pain her.  Perhaps she'd been tired from the long journey before.  She'd spent an indeterminate amount of time before this not moving at all.

" _Many are those who wander in sin_ ," she whispered, " _despairing that they are lost forever.  But the one who repents, who has faith, unshaken by the darkness of the world, she shall know true peace_."

She had never read the Chant in her youth.  In retrospect, and secretly, for she would never have admitted to such a blasphemy in the house of the man who raised her in their stead, Meredith doubted that her parents had been particularly religious.  She could remember no prayers, no symbols, no Chantry services.  She could remember none of the Chantry's usual turns of phrase spoken to Amelia—in the end, not even, 'the Maker's will', only 'for the best.'

Now, as she endeavoured to be utterly honest, to hide nothing, at least from her own mind, she saw that this had been her first real lie, her first deliberate omission.

For weeks after the tragedy, Meredith had felt nothing, and had spent most of her days sitting in silence.  She gathered even at that age that Ser Wentworth hadn't the faintest idea of what to do with her, had only taken her in because she had nowhere else to go and because she'd told him she wanted to be a templar.  He mostly ignored her, except to offer her meals at regular intervals.

Once per week he took her to the Chantry for services, and she sat in silence there, too.  She noted that there were verses everyone seemed to know, and that they were from the Chant of Light.  For lack of anything better to do, Meredith sought out the thing in its hulking compendium in Ser Wentworth's house, and she began to read it from the beginning.

She poured over each verse until she had nearly memorized it, sat with the words until they meant something to her.  One day, a few months after the tragedy, she found that she had questions.  When Ser Wentworth had called her to dinner, she had asked him.

"Well," he began, thoughtfully, and not a little awkwardly, "what is your opinion on the verse?"

Even as a child, Ser Wentworth had taken her at her word, treated her as his equal.  Perhaps he hadn't known any other way to deal with her.  Meredith hadn't felt she needed another parent, but she'd hardly realized how starved for attention she'd been until that halting conversation about some verse from the Chant.  She'd poured over the conversation for days afterward, studied the Chant all the more meticulously so that she would have more to ask and more to say.

The Chant of Light brought her comfort where there was only numbness, ordered her days when they were empty.  Now, as she'd been brought to her knees yet again, everything rang hollow and distant once more.  The words were familiar on her tongue.  Even if she no longer felt them, she felt that familiarity, and that, for the moment, was more than enough reason to continue speaking them.

Someone was coming after all.  Though Meredith had a suspicious she knew who it was, she could no longer place any faith in suspicions.  What felt more real, more plausible to her, changed from one moment to the next, and only through ruthless scrutiny had she managed to reform any differentiation between false whisperings from the beyond and the tangible reality of the corporeal world.

Meredith had a suspicion that she knew who was coming because the elf they called the Inquisitor kept no other prisoners, and Meredith had no cause to receive other visitors.  The Seeker called Pentaghast was the one who had brought her here, but when they spoke, she did not know exactly what she hoped to uncover, and Meredith told her truthfully that she could not trust her recollections of the events after which the Seeker inquired.  Meredith doubted that she would hear from the Seeker again so soon.

Marian Hawke, however, was here—Meredith knew she was real because the passage of time had changed her; she was not merely an echo of a person long lost—and she was prone to flights of ill-advised fancy.  Hawke seldom knew what she meant to ask, yet often managed to get information out of people entirely by accident.  Meredith imagined the Seeker had asked Hawke to speak with her a day or two prior with just such a goal in mind, without realizing the extent of the history between them.

She imagined, but she did not _know_ , she reminded herself, flatly.  For all she knew, the dwarf had penned every detail in his newly infamous novel.  For all she knew, all those years ago when Hawke had come by to speak with her—under the guise of a social call, of all things—it had been to mine her in that guileless way she had for personal information Meredith wouldn't have offered just anyone, to be twisted against her in her friend's bestseller detailing why she and her _apostate companions_ ought to be _absolved of all responsibility_ and Meredith ought to be _left in a cell to rot_ —

Meredith took in a shaky breath.  False.  The words felt...red, and wrong, and she felt cold sweat beading around her forehead, but today they faded when she dismissed them, and left only the cold silence of reality in their wake.  Meredith didn't know why Hawke had come to speak with her on trivial matters, and there was no use in speculating.  Marian Hawke was prone to flights of ill-advised fancy.  As likely as anything else was that there had been no reason at all.

Someone was coming.  This much remained true.  There came the familiar creak of the dungeon door, and Meredith managed another shuddering sigh before she could lift her eyes to take in the unmistakable form of her intruder.

Hawke led with an unmarked bottle.  "Brought us some whiskey," she said, almost cheerfully.  "Don't tell the Seeker."

Meredith's eyes narrowed of their own volition.  Hawke ignored the sternness of her expression, as she always had, and sat down unceremoniously in front of her cell.  Time had altered her face, but now the false voices knew it—she could no longer trust this vision of Hawke any more than her predecessor.

"I think it's whiskey, anyway.  Let it never be said that I have a refined palate."

Meredith eyed the bottle, then Hawke, with unmitigated skepticism.

Hawke affected her signature smirk, meant to disarm.  Meredith wondered, not for the first time, what sorcery must be behind it, that it should prove so effective.  "Come on," she said, "we don't have to talk about red lyrium or templars or trying to kill each other or anything."

In what seemed almost another lifetime, Meredith wouldn't have been able to resist flashing a smirk of her own.  Now, the urge rang distant, and her words flat.  "What does that leave for us?"

Hawke's smile faltered, and she averted her eyes.  "I don't know, I could ask you what it's like to be in prison, I guess."

A small breath that might once have been a scoff escaped Meredith's lips.  "Ironic that I should know while you do not."

"Yes," Hawke agreed airily, "it does seem like it should be the other way around." 

She offered the bottle with renewed verve, and Meredith relented at last, lifted a heavy-chained hand to steady it as she took a drink.  She had never been much for drinking, but at the moment the burn was familiar enough to feel soothing, tangible enough to seem real.

"But tell me, Meredith," Hawke continued, "if someone had finally managed to take me down, would you have visited me?"

Somewhere deep within, Meredith felt a spark of something indescribable.  She met Hawke's gaze coolly, inclined her head studiously.  "In truth," she replied, "I think I'd never have permitted anyone else the satisfaction of bringing you to justice."

Hawke rewarded Meredith's twisted humour with a tired chuckle, a mere shadow of the vivacious sound such a comment might once have engendered.  "Now, wouldn't that be something?" she said.  "The great Knight-Commander Meredith, jealous of my other enemies.  I'll warn you, the list is rather long."

Another odd thought occurred to her, senseless to indulge, but whimsical enough that she thought Hawke would enjoy it.  "Between the two of us, our enemies might span the entire population of Kirkwall."

Hawke laughed properly then, and there returned to her eyes the old spark of mischief that had so tormented Meredith in that other lifetime now lost to her. 

She'd gleaned a perverse sort of thrill then, out of making the Champion laugh, somewhat inexplicably charming her as she so often seemed to charm others.  She'd felt a rush of pride, she remembered now—and surprisingly little suspicion—when Hawke came by to visit her for no discernible reason, and they'd spoken of happy memories and books they hadn't had time to read, instead of mages and templars and impossible decisions.

Meredith had found that she had little else to speak of anymore, but Hawke had little trouble filling silence.

There had been moments, too—and though Meredith knew she could not trust her memories of these years, these moments still rang true—when silence reigned between them an instant too long, when Hawke, who was naturally affectionate, had quite innocently laid a hand on Meredith's arm to emphasize a point, or leaned against her shoulder when she laughed, and Meredith had thought perhaps, if she were to advance, Hawke would allow it.

But it made no difference, for Meredith would not.  Independently wealthy, well-liked apostate mercenary or not, the burden of magic had placed Hawke beneath Meredith, and Meredith in the role of her protector.  Whenever Meredith had burned most brightly for Hawke, she'd reminded herself coldly that when the day came that Hawke fell victim to the demons that plagued all mages, there must remain someone who had not succumbed to her charms.  There must be someone left who was willing to _strike her down_.

"I hear you were the subject of one of your dwarven friend's novels at long last," Meredith offered, in an attempt to shake away her thoughts.

Hawke made a small noise of discontentment and took a generous swig from the unmarked bottle.  "So do I," she said, patting her chest firmly.

"You haven't read it?" Meredith wondered.

"Been a little busy running for my life," Hawke replied amiably.  "Besides, would you want to read about yourself?  I'm under the impression that Varric likes me well enough—I'd hate to ruin it by seeing myself through his eyes."

Meredith felt a faint chuckle escape her lungs, dry and distant.  "You think yourself so unseemly to behold?"

Hawke leaned in dramatically.  "Definitely."

"I think it would be quite interesting," said Meredith.  "To see yourself through a friend's eyes, as you put it."

Hawke's cocksure smirk faded, and she offered the bottle to Meredith again.  "Suppose you saw something you didn't want to know?"

"Hm."  Meredith accepted the bottle, took a small sip, relished a burn that had nothing to do with lyrium.  "To be confronted with one's own faults, or indeed, even one's own virtues, unexpectedly, is a daunting burden," she agreed.

"But what," Hawke countered, "it's a virtue to know yourself or something?"

Meredith met Hawke's gaze, feeling perhaps more solid, more certain than she had since she'd awoken.  "Exactly so," she said.

Hawke's response was a slight furrowing of the brow, a troubled set to the lips.  A small flicker of movement caught Meredith's eye—Hawke's fingers pressed against one of the bars of the cell, as though meaning to reach forth—and for the first time since she'd awoken, she felt real, tangible longing coursing through her veins.

Hawke followed Meredith's gaze, then lowered her own, and curled her fingers into a fist.  "Well," she said breathlessly, "I'd best be going."  She stood, dusted off her coat, and departed the dungeon just quickly enough not to be strictly describable as running away.


End file.
